


Cold Blooded

by Moonsheen



Category: Green Lantern: The Animated Series
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 17:57:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/600564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonsheen/pseuds/Moonsheen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During a mission to fix the Interceptor, a bitter ice storm leaves Razer and Aya cut off from the ship with a failing power ring. It's too bad Razer wasn't built for the cold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold Blooded

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kolamity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kolamity/gifts).



The tower exploded quite nicely. It was, of course, the perfect job. The engines had a foreign interface, but they’d had the same basic oxygen filtration system he had seen on a dozen old desert generators. Re-route the vents and adapt the controls to a species which relied on a tonal language system, and it was no issue to create the fatal jam in the fans. The resultant jam caused a dangerous rise in pressure. This pressure, incidentally, caused a back-flow of refuse into the generators and create an explosion that compromised the tower on a structural level. Within precisely five minutes, it caused complete collapse of the re-purposed terraforming facility which had, also incidentally, created the massive snow storm which had disrupted communications between the planet's five major cities for the past year and a half.  
  
It also had the added benefit of dislodging enough rock and snow to create a descending wall that -- on size and power-- could have matched one of Volkreg's greater dust storms. Rock, dirt, ice, and snow descended down the slope, down into the valley where the advance force of the Karza Mercenaries were at that time assembled, weapons charged. It would be a wonderful surprise, so intent were they on their quarry, a young man bent in the knee deep snow. His breath frosting fiercely in the cold mountain air as their captain held her blade at level with his dark, hooded eyes.  
  
“Reptile,” sneered Captain Kalragi, who in her thirst for the kill, had quite forgotten to glance over her shoulder. Her mane bristled. Her tail lashed the snow behind her in an eager thump. “Did you think it would be so easy to make a fool of the greatest standing force in this system?”  
  
Sloppy job on the part of this ‘greatest standing force.’ It was sloppy for their use of an idiot-proofed interface, the sloppy construction of the facility, the decision to place said facility on a cliff face, and their decision to send the bulk of their elite blizzard guard after a single interloper – even if that interloper had, in fact, just embarrassed said elite guard by pretending to be their long waited for Red Lantern contact. Even if that interloper had already taken out fifty of their better men. Even if that interloper was on his knees, injured, and at their mercy.  
  
He looked up at her. “No,” he said, quietly, rage faltering in favor a glimmer of exhausted satisfaction. “I thought it would be harder.”  
  
Captain Kalragi had just enough time to glance over her shoulder as the wall of snow swallowed the high end of the valley. Her ears fell back. Her eyes grew very large. She swore, in her own language, at a speed that was nigh untranslatable.  
  
Razer shut his eyes and drew up the last vestiges of boiling rage in his heart. He lashed out at her weapon and pulled, flinging her away.  His skin burned, as the wall of snow and ice swept him off of his feet, and the last vestiges of his ring's life began to gutter and die.  
  
Really, as far as operations went, it could not have been more perfect – except, perhaps, for that last part.  The cold and strength of the avalanche reached Razer with a ruthless sweep that sent his heat-loving vitals screaming. Perhaps, tumbling head over heels in the dark rushing silence, he had misjudged the charge left in his ring after the last ten men. Perhaps he had ought to have altered his own escape path to avoid being caught in the wake of his own destruction. Even so, he had still not been the one so foolish to build a disruption tower overlooking an icy cliff.  The facility was gone. Most of the Karza Mercenaries went with it, and there went their standing contract with Atrocitus – they would not abide the apparent betrayal by one of their liaisons. The citizens of the planet Karz would be able to communicate with one another again. The trade routes would be restored and, incidentally, would be able to deliver to them the components they had needed to repair the Interceptor's faulting atmospheric systems. It would also in turn reveal the Karza Mercenaries to be in the pay of the Red Lantern Corps, thereby diffusing a year's worth of planetary tension. Karz would not be so interested in further interferences of this type. It would, at the very least, make farming this planet for potential men and resources a marginally more difficult task.  
  
So really, thought Razer as he felt his blood cool and his body short itself into a cold-induced hibernation from which it would be unlikely he would awake from any time soon, it was not the worst job he'd done.  
  
'Too bad,' thought Razer as his body hummed into shut-down mode, the only points of heat the lancing pain that hit his shoulders all at once -- like a pair of hands that grasped, and pulled. 'It had to be an ice planet.'  
  
  
* * *  
  
  
“Razer.”  
  
Ilana had begun to speak in monotone-- no, no mistaking the voice. Razer hissed faintly. Grey awareness broke through a Volkreg dawn. Light shone in his face, stubbornly green. “Set the time back,” he said, in that patient way you were supposed to talk to machines. “Tell Hal Jordan that no sane man is awake before the first sun clears the mountain.”  
  
The colloquialism would have normally sent her checking her references out of interest for the source of such a phrase, but Aya glowed with special persistence. “Razer,” she said. “Hal Jordan is not here. You must wake up.”  
  
“Aya,” said Razer, cracking open an eye. His vision swam. He took a careful swipe at the air with his tongue. Everything began to vibrate with clearer picture. The blank ceiling, the dark walls, the pressing exhaustion. Razer shut his eyes. “Let me rest.”  
  
Glowing fiberglass struck him across the face. Razer's mind was dragged into the conscious, hissing and scrabbling at the air. The world stung. Razer tried to drag that morning irritation into a flare of heat, tried to process 'I am awake, why I am awake' to 'dead, dead and gone, dead and gone, failure, failure, failure, DAMN YOU ATROCITUS' but he only got half-way and muddled somewhere around 'why is it cold?' He ring pulsed vaguely but refused to do more besides filter the atmosphere into his flaring nostrils. Razer opened his mouth to clear his vision and stared, blearily, at the glowing form sitting across from him.  
  
He'd grabbed her arm. He stared, blankly, at the curve of warm, white casing under his hand. He let it go.  
  
“What,” said Razer. “Was that?”  
  
“Razer,” said Aya, glowing dutifully. “You were showing signs of physical distress. Waking your higher functions proved difficult. I was was required to apply a more direct method to restart your systems.”  
  
“You hit me,” said Razer, grasping at the one thing he understood. This happened to be the soreness in his jaw, somehow distinct from the pain of the cold, cold air. Razer's head sank under the weight of it.  
  
“It appears to have had some effect,” said Aya. “Your ring is unable to maintain more than the most basic of life functions. I am unable to give you a direct reading, but my understanding is you have brought its levels down to approximately 10 percent.”  
  
Was there a hint of severity somewhere under the digital accents? Razer hardly cared, he leaned back, discovering for the first time he'd been laid out across a cold, stone floor. Far from blank, the ceiling above was ridged and dripping. A cave, then. Carved out, not natural. Someone, something, must have used it for passage through the mountain.  
  
“It did the job,” said Razer, irritation was a poor substitute for deep, aching rage. He let his eyes flicker shut. It wasn't as though they ever did him much good. “I blew the station, didn't I? Not half bad, considering the equipment on hand.”  
  
“Nevertheless your course of actions carried a high probability of your death at minimal benefit,” said Aya.  
  
“The storm is dissipating, isn't it?”  
  
This prompted an automatic response. “The thickest of the cloud cover will disperse within twenty four hours.”  
  
“And the Interceptor?”  
  
“The signal has grown stronger,” said Aya, “but I will not be able to re-establish full contact until the interference has cleared.”  
  
“Which it will, now that I have blown the station,” said Razer.  “Hal Jordan may now 'play hero' to his heart's content. I would say it has had some benefit.”  
  
“You sustained unnecessary damage and your power ring has dipped below acceptable levels,” said Aya, “I would not call this operation 'half good,' either.”  
  
“You are scolding me,” said Razer.  
  
“I am pointing out the flaws in your reasoning,” said Aya, “in an attempt to grasp your thought process and better predict your actions in later engagements.”  
  
“Let me guess. Out of a 'general dissatisfaction with actions that do not reach your personal standard?'”  
  
“Yes,” said Aya, simply.  
  
“You're annoyed,” said Razer. Maybe it was the cold. Maybe it was the blank stare – not just mechanical, not just uncomprehending, but _intentionally_ blank – but Razer felt his chest twinge in the faint hints of a laugh. Very faint. It took a lot of effort to move, just then. “With me. You have decided that you have personal standards. You must be the worst computer interface I have ever encountered.”  
  
“I am the most advanced system Oa has yet to develop,” said Aya, without a hint of heat, “and at this time I am more efficient than you. Simply put, Razer, you are not in the position to take that particular side of this argument.”  
  
“Meaning 'I'm not one to talk,'” murmured Razer. If she had anything to say to that, he couldn't be bothered to make it out. The rock floor had somehow become quite comfortable, and the cave had gotten quite dark.  
  
* * *  
  
The second time, she didn't hit him. She just held a light in his eyes.  
  
“Razer,” said Aya.  
  
“What?” hissed Razer. Then, cracking an eye open: “Fine. I am awake. Don't do that again. Where are we?”  
  
This time, Aya stood over him. Sh rested her hand at her side, glancing over her shoulder. Her head stopped just short of the ceiling. “A small cavern that was once the primary habitat of a specific breed of rock worm indigenous to this region.”  
  
Ask a simple question, get an encyclopedia. Razer did his best to sit up. His arms felt weighted down. It hurt to breathe, although his ribs weren't broken. He adjusted his ring, feeling the slick dead weight of it under his thumb. Trapped, he thought at it, trapped, trapped here. Trapped alone. Trapped alone with a computer. Trapped with Aya.  
  
The ring stayed dim. Swallowing the dry, bitter air, Razer looked up. Aya must have already done her inspection of their surroundings. She stayed standing where she was, with that perfect stillness afforded by someone who did not have muscles to grow antsy. “You dug me out,” he said, finally. “You brought me here.”  
  
“Yes,” said Aya.  
  
“What a ridiculous waste of time.”  
  
“I disagree,” said Aya.  
  
“You should have rejoined the Interceptor.”  
  
“In these present weather conditions, that is quite impossible,” said Aya. She sat next to him. The glow of her constructed parts brought out the blues in the stones around her. In his muddled state, Razer found himself fascinated by it. He pressed his tongue against the lid of his mouth and forced his eyes away. “Besides that, it is not in my interest to, as it is said, 'leave a man behind.'”  
  
“May I remind you once more,” said Razer, “that I am not a member of your crew.”  
  
“If you are referring to your status as our prisoner,” said Aya, “I will note that you rejoined by your own will.”  
  
“Will.” Razer's mouth twitched. “Of course. I see no ulterior motive in your choice of words.”  
  
“If you are observing my reference to the basic strengths of the Green Lantern Corps, I assure you that that was fully intentional.”  
  
Razer groaned and let himself sink back again. He rolled onto his side, away from the light. His shoulder still ached. Captain Kalragi had managed to wrench his arm quite badly on one strike. Still, he preferred that ache to the prickle in his fingers and toes. If he concentrated on that, perhaps, he could rest until it was gone--  
  
Aya rolled him over.  
  
“Razer,” she said.  
  
“Mm.”  
  
“I cannot allow you to sleep,” said Aya.  
  
“Mm.”  
  
“Though your injuries are minor, your vital signs decrease dangerous levels each time you lose consciousness.”  
  
“And you expect me to care?”  
  
“Yes,” said Aya, “because I do not believe that you wish for death at this time.”  
  
It would be so easy, but damned if she wasn't right. Razer rolled to face her. He kept his legs tucked close to his chest, tucked his hands firmly in the sleeves of his robes. What he saw was Aya's knee plating.    
  
“It is a biological defense,” he said, finally. “On Vol-- the world I come from. If we are caught out in the un-dark, between the setting of the second sun and the rising of the first moon, our bodies slip into a temporary hibernation. It is meant to conserve our energy and remaining food stores, until a time in which we are able to awaken to more favorable conditions.”  
  
“Noted,” said Aya, who no doubt would remember this once her access to the Interceptors data systems was properly restored. “How long would this 'un-dark' period last?”  
  
“Approximately three hours.” The translator could make that conversion, at least. Although he wondered often if she hadn't memorized all of his speech patterns, regional dialect, inflections, odd hisses and tonal shifts –to the point where it wouldn't have mattered if he'd had the ring or not. “So, really. You may as well just let me rest. It will be a more...pleasant experience for both of us.”  
  
“Razer,” said Aya, with the slowness Razer had come to understand meant she was doing her best to simplify for the sake of 'mere organic' processes. “According to my sensors, if the weather continues to disperse at this rate, the Interceptor will not be able to reach us for approximately five hours.”  
  
Razer stared.  
  
“So you see,” said Aya, “I do not believe that that experience would be 'pleasant' for either of us.”  
  
“No,” said Razer. “I ...suppose not.”  
  
  
* * *  
  
  
The first hour or so was not so difficult. Razer managed, with some creakiness, to stand. His shoulder hurt less, whether he could credit it to the numbing effect of the cold or Aya's quick work with a scrap of his robes, he couldn't truly be sure.  
  
“I will go find something which can be processed for warmth,” said Aya.  
  
“Ah, yes. The greatest technology Oa has to offer and we are reduced to the question of  'can we build a fire?'”  
  
“You are still capable of sarcasm. Good.” Aya's eyes flickered up at him. “You must remain awake until then. I would suggest keeping your mind active.”  
  
That 'something' turned out to be a quick scouting off the perimeter. It wasn't that difficult. The cave, as it turned out, ran along a basic circuit that looped around and back, with one or two off-shoots Razer took great care not to let himself slip through. There wasn't much by way of light, but a childhood of stooping against the nastier sandstorms his planet had to offer had left Razer well-equipped to navigate such conditions.  It was true, in well-lit areas Hal Jordan or Kilowog may have had the advantage as evolved visual-oriented species, but Razer operated best in dim conditions -- simply because he had never been visually-oriented to begin with. It was what had made him best suited for crawling along the old farm generators when he was a boy, or squeezing through the dark ducts of enemy siege ships as a youth or, even more recently, navigating whatever facility on whatever planet Atrocitus had set him on – equipment at his hip, ready to place whatever explosives, or spy material, needed to further the cause of the rage-filled lost sons and daughters of...  
  
Razer could only manifest a slight flicker of bitterness at the thought. Not enough to call back a full transformation, but enough to give him a flicker of heat and lever himself back up against the wall where he'd begun to slouch. He must have done the circuit at least twice without realizing. He would do it again until Aya returned. Razer felt along a knob of stone. He'd not studied that knob. He was no geologist. His knowledge of rock started and ended with the type that could be shattered and used to spread gravel along the homestead – and Ilana, as land-owner, had been the one who'd done most of the negotiating with the quarrymen. He'd never liked the quarrymen. There were only so many ways to talk up the same block of rock. He'd been much more at home visiting the scrapyards, bargaining the traveling merchants down for a coil of wire or a ring of metal that could be used to optimize the processing power of the harvesters, speeding up the gatherers leaving more to be sold, the portion that didn't go to the military as the warlords got closer with every day...  
  
Razer dug his nails into the rock. No. Not a flicker. Even then, it was only a dull ache. All he could see was Ilana glancing up from the ledger to see the new set of copper wiring wriggling in its box.  
  
“And just what's that?” she asked. She blinked, and frowned, a face that said 'I will humor you, husband, but you are going to tell me that this isn't like that old skimmer you purchased when we were 12...'  
  
He'd smirked. It was nothing like that at all – and she'd liked that old skimmer, once he'd fixed it up.  'It's a fortnight shaved off the next harvest. You'll see, Ilana.'  
  
She had.  
  
So had the recruiting agents.  
  
Razer shook his head. Just what had brought that all to mind? And with such vividness. He could almost taste the dusty Volkreg sunset. He'd heard stories, from the old farmhands, that sufferers during the un-dark could experience vivid hallucinations close to their biological shut down but-- no, no. His nails left tracks in the stone. He would not falter, he would not be found by the Aya – by a machine – curled up in some nook, even if it had been a waste of time, digging him out of the snow, even if--  
  
Even if a pair of gold eyes flicked open a foot away from his nose. That pair of eyes was joined by a second set, and a third. In fact, those eyes floated in a large craggy face, with a circular mouth full of hooked forward thrusting teeth that did, in fact, look quite good at carving rock in a particular, grooved pattern. It also looked quite good at carving flesh, too. No, he supposed he would not be face to face with herbivore.  It could never be as simple as that.  
  
  
*  *  *  
  
  
Even without his power ring, he'd put in a good effort. He grabbed the creature by the tusks as it's rammed him. It threw him back ten feet through the hall, and ten feet of its body followed him – the teeth, as it turned out, weren't just on its face. Its body bristled and twisted with sharp spines. The spines scraped along the stone walls – extended, to prevent any attempts its prey might make at trying to slip past its body in the tunnel.  
  
As far as evolutionary traits went, it was a touch more inventive than his own.  
  
Just as well he hadn't had the energy to consider that move. Razer settled for grabbing the creature by one set of eyelids and jamming its head into one of the walls. The spines stuck. The creature grunted and whined. Razer had managed to back out to the larger tunnel by the time it burst free, whirring its way up the hall with a renewed effort. He punched it in what he assumed to be its jaw. It didn't flinch. He punched it again, and its next charge brought him down on his back, his feet just barely keeping one of its lower tusks from embedding in his abdomen. He pressed up with his leg, as far as he could. The spines bristled. Beads of saliva dripped down. The gold eyes rolled. The creature squealed.  
  
“Really,” said Razer, as his legs began to burn. “Were you that desperate for a meal?”  
  
A green bolt struck the creature in one of its eyes. It screeched and shuffled backwards.  
  
Aya landed in front of him, her arm clutching a pile of debris. She dropped it at Razer's feet, and stood – one hand raised and glowing. The creature reared, showing off all the spines along its belly, the thin, slimy ones that pulled it through the tunnel.  
  
“If you are a being with any form of sentience,” said Aya, tonelessly, “I would advise that you retreat.”  
  
The creature's eyes flickered. For a moment, it seemed as though it understood. Then, it made a long whine, zeroed on her, and threw itself, head first, at her glowing form.  
  
  
* * *  
  
  
In the second hour they had both fire and something to eat. Razer kept close to the burning pile, sopping up the heat as best he could while Aya roasted pieces of the cave worm on what had once been an iron bar.  
  
“You are certain this is edible?” asked Razer. “These seems like something more suited to that oaf Kilowog.”  
  
“It's protein structure is similar to the food stores you have consumed on the Interceptor,” said Aya. She poked one of the pieces with her finger. The movement was so delicate, one would have been hard-pressed to guess she'd butchered the dead creature herself.  
  
“Which you have apparently observed,” remarked Razer. “Were my bodily processes that riveting?”  
  
“It is part of my duty to monitor the life functions of all passengers,” said Aya, “and you would not speak with me on the subject.”  
  
The meat turned dark blue when cooked. It dripped on its spit. The fires hissed.  
  
The air tasted like grease. Razer pressed his tongue against the top of his mouth to block out the sickening richness of it. “I ate a week ago.”  
  
“You will eat now,” said Aya. “It will keep your body active.”  
  
“And that is an order, is it?”  
  
Aya stared at him. “You will eat now,” she said.  
  
Razer ate. It tasted bitter and went down like slime, but the angry mutterings of his stomach almost sounded like the burning core of Shard.  
  
* * *  
  
  
The third hour Razer looked up over his knees and said: “Thank you.”  
  
Aya was already watching him. She'd probably been watching him the whole time. “You are welcome, Razer, but may I ask what you are thanking me for?”  
  
“Digging me out from the avalanche was unnecessary,” said Razer, “but I would have hated to have wound up in the stomach of that thing.”  
  
“I see,” said Aya, “so you believe your death would be suited to a certain circumstance?”  
  
“I think...” He hadn't, really. They were running low on things to burn, and the fire hadn't taken the cold entirely from the corners of his mind. He found his head oddly loose, hard to anchor his thoughts to his tongue. “There is much I have to answer for. Perhaps I'd deserve the indignity of being eaten by an oversized worm, but I would rather my death serve some purpose.”  
  
“I understand the need for purpose,” said Aya.  
  
“Do you?”  
  
“Yes. It is one of the foundations of my core conditions. 'I wish to be of service.'”  
  
“Service,” Razer curled his lip. “That is a foolish pursuit. You are a mindless slave, at best, and a coward seeking no responsibility at worst.”  
  
“I am not entirely certain what 'cowardice' is,” said Aya, “but the second condition for me is 'how may I be of service?'”  
  
“Yes, how might I please masters who hold no regard for the lives they claim to protect.”  
  
“Then ask 'to whom may I be of service?'”  
  
“That is an odd condition for a machine.”  
  
“It is not one of my programmed conditions,” admitted Aya. “It is simply the next reasonable question one must ask.”  
  
“I do not envy your creators,” said Razer. “A dangerous line of reasoning, when a machine can ask those questions. Good. I hope you wreak bloody vengeance on all of them.”  
  
Aya's eyes went dim in that way that meant she was puzzling over that statement. “For what?” she asked, after a moment.  
  
“For wasting a mind like yours on a fool's errand like this.”  
  
  
  
* * *  
  
  
The fire died halfway through the third hour. Aya weighed leaving to retrieve more debris, but Razer stopped her with his hand on her arm. She might have argued him down. He might have let her. The temperature had sapped everything except heaviness from his arms, and when she turned to look down at him his grip had faltered. He fell on his side.  
  
In the end, she reasoned that there was a possibility that the cave worm had not been alone. She was that precise about it. She tore off another piece of his sleeve and fed it to the dying flames, using a short burst of energy to light it higher.  
  
“I am amazed you can draw from the Interceptor at this range,” said Razer.  
  
“I can't,” said Aya. “My power is at approximately 27% and falling.”  
  
Razer stared. He'd forgotten that her body was a construct. It burned as bright as ever, around the pieces of metal that made up her 'true' body. “How much energy does it take to maintain that form?”  
  
“Considerable,” says Aya. “Although when I am in range of the Interceptor, it is negligible. If Hal Jordan is following my signal, I should only lose this form for a short period.”  
  
“And you have been maintaining it all this time?”  
  
“You required assistance.”  
  
“You've done well enough in pieces.”  
  
“I am unable to speak in that form,” said Aya.  
  
Razer shut his mouth with a faint hiss.  
  
“It seemed necessary,” said Aya.  
  
  
* * *  
  
  
In the fourth hour the fire has died and Razer lay still, knees tucked close to his chest. Aya peered over him. The disc that made up her palm blared. Her face hovered over his. She spoke. It sounded like empty tones. Razer gasped. He could just make out the shape of her face.  
  
“You're nothing like her, you know,” he said, to that face.  
  
Aya blinked. Bright, blue eyes. Blue light, like a computer screen.  
  
“I would never have realized,” he said, “if they hadn't said anything. You have no scent. Your inflections are all wrong. If you had moved like her, if you had spoken like her, I would have known. I would have known in an instant. There was never any mistaking it.”  
  
Damn his eyes, anyway. Damn Volkreg, and it's battered dunes. Damn the planet which had honed some of his senses and robbed him of others. Damn the planet for being her ill-tended grave.  
  
“I see,” said Aya. Her voice cut through the blur with the sharpness of a surgical laser. “You are referring to Ilana.”  
  
The way she said it was wrong, too. None of the regional accent. None of the quiet irritation with her parents. She'd been named after an esteemed great grandmother. It had been a lot to live up to. “Did they program you with a sense of humor?”  
  
“Hal Jordan has explained humor to me many times,” admitted Aya, “but it is only as I have said before. I had no other references.”  
  
“Yes,” said Razer. “I suppose it would be as simple as that.”  
  
He felt fingers on his face. Warm fingers. They tickled and crackled across his hide. He scowled.  
  
“Razer,” said Aya. “Your vitals are failing. You must stay awake.”  
  
Razer shook his head.  
  
“Razer,” said Aya. She must have run through her options. She came to her most ruthless: “You once expressed a preference for re-living painful memories so long as you could still see this face.”  
  
“It's not the same. I can't look at you.”  
  
“Because you consider us dissimilar?”  
  
“Because Red Lanterns are fed by pain and hate,” said Razer, “and looking at you isn't painful.”  
  
“...oh,” said Aya.  
  
She went quiet for a time after that.  
  
Then, when the cave began to grow truly dim, she tugged his shoulder.  
  
“Razer.”  
  
“Hm?”  
  
“How does one wake from this state of hibernation?”  
  
“When temperature is such that it replaces the warmth we lost,” said Razer.  
  
“And if you are unable to return to that temperature?”  
  
Razer said nothing. He couldn't, after that. It was dark, and he was too tired to hate much of anything, anymore.  
  
“I see,” said Aya. She gathered him near.  
  
The cavern flooded with light:  bright, warm, and persistent.  
  
And, of course, it was green.  
  
  
* * *  
  
  
Halfway through the fourth hour Hal Jordan showed up. He'd flown through the remnants of the ice storm to reach them. It was ill-advised, reckless, and, frankly, something no sane person would do. It was exactly what Razer – warm, alive, surrounded in the scrabbling disembodied pieces of a disassembled AI – had come to expect from him. Humans were a strange species. It was a wonder they'd ever survived long enough to find their way across the stars.  
  
  
* * *  
  
  
“Sorry to stick you with old gloom and doom,” said Hal.  
  
“I can hear you you know,” said Razer.  
  
This was noted, and firmly ignored. Hal grinned as Aya's eyes flickered across the screens. “You missed one heck of a party in Karz-Di.”  
  
“Party?” huffed Kilowog, fanning himself miserably against the dash. “Jordan, is 'party' just Earth-speak for 'punch foreign officiates in the face?'”  
  
“It stopped them from declaring war on Karz-Ra, didn't it?”  
  
“And nearly had them declaring war on us instead!” snarled Kilowog, but he could only manage so much bluster. He slouched in his seat. “Well, we got the part and we got one less planet looking for a fight. How are the repairs on that, anyway? It's baking in here!”  
  
“Bacon?” said Hal, innocently. “You know, Kilowog--”  
  
“Don't even, Jordan.”  
  
Aya answered dutifully: “Normal atmospheric conditions will be restored in approximately two hours and thirty six minutes.”  
  
“Aw, heck,” said Kilowog. “We'll be back in Guardian space before that.”  
  
“If only,” said Hal. “Oh well. Sauna for a bit longer. Anyone for a massage?”  
  
“A what?”  
  
“If you two are going to whine,” said Razer, “I am quite done here.”  
  
“Says the guy who sat pretty while we were fighting off a royal guard,” snapped Kilowog.  
  
Razer went to his room. It was sweltering. The metal of his chair shone with condensation. Razer draped himself into it and stared at the dormant churn of his lantern.  
  
“Aya,” he said, after a moment.  
  
Aya's body was quite occupied with diagnostics in the bridge. Aya's true eye flickered alive above the door.  
  
“Yes, Razer?”  
  
“You said that it would take two hours and thirty six minutes before the normal temperatures would return.”  
  
“Correct.”  
  
“As a matter of professional interest,” Razer leaned back in his seat, resting his boots on the desk. It was a relief, in some way, to have his suit back. “Just when were the settings actually repaired?”  
  
“Twenty four minutes and thirty sevens seconds prior to this conversation,” said Aya.  
  
“I see,” said Razer. “And is there a reason you have chosen this ...arbitrary time to relieve our dear friends of their burden?”  
  
“I have recently come to understand a new set of biological necessities inherent to your species,” said Aya. “It simply occurred to me that as a naturally cold blooded species, you would like some time to regain some of the lost heat in your system.”  
  
“I see,” said Razer. Of course, it would be something as simple as that.


End file.
